Interview with Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje, March 21, 2018

Partial Transcript: Where do you currently live?

Segment Synopsis: DjeDje describes living in Los Angeles, California on and off since 1970, attending graduate school and later teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an ethnomusicologist. She explains how she initially wanted to be a concert pianist before discovering black ethnomusicology as a student at Fisk University. She talks about being born and raised in Jesup, Georgia, and she discusses her first piano teacher.

Keywords: African Diaspora; Tuskegee University; West Africa; classical music; gospel music; pianist

Partial Transcript: And that is when she began to say, I can't teach her anything else. She has learned too much.

Segment Synopsis: DjeDje describes how her father sent her to Boggs Academy after she surpassed her childhood piano teacher. She talks about how the faculty was majority white while the student body was majority Black, mentioning how students came from Africa and across the East Coast. She discusses the self-sufficient nature of the isolated school. She also describes her experience competing at classical piano competitions across Georgia.

Keywords: Keysville (Burke County), Georgia; Natalie Hinderas; diversity; education; food; international students; piano teacher; segregation; work

Partial Transcript: The question was: what was I going to do when I leave Boggs?

Segment Synopsis: DjeDje discusses deciding to attend Fisk University after Boggs Academy. She talks about going to a 6-week music program at Hampton Institute before starting college, describing how this experience later helped her in graduate school at UCLA. She also mentions playing the clarinet in junior high school at Wayne County Training School.

Keywords: Fisk Jubilee Singers; Hampton University; Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs); choir; higher education; marching band